49ers headquarters gets a new face

49ERS BIGGER & BETTER

John Crumpacker, San Francisco Chronicle

John Crumpacker, Chronicle Staff Writer

Published 7:00 am, Wednesday, April 29, 2009

Joe Staley (center) works out with teammates Tony Wragge (left) and Adam Snyder (right) in the new expanded weight room at the 49ers training facility in Santa Clara, Calif., on Tuesday, April 14, 2009.
Photo: Paul Chinn, The Chronicle

Just as the 49ers as a team are under construction in Mike Singletary's first full season as head coach, so too is the building they call home.

No, not Candlestick Park. The team's headquarters at 4949 Centennial Blvd. in Santa Clara is in the midst of its first major renovation since opening as a state-of-the-art facility in 1988.

A two-phase project adding 9,000 square feet of space for players and office employees is under way. First things first, the weight room was expanded to include more instruments of torture.

Racks of old-school kettlebells and heavy chains have their place alongside the latest weight machines, racks of free weights and exercise balls and elastic tubing. It's now a showplace for touring free agents as well as a place to hunker down for serious work.

"They really did a good job of utilizing the space to make it more conducive for players to come in and be a part of the offseason program," guard Tony Wragge said. "The trainers got together with the people upstairs (in management) and said let's increase the space and make it more appealing for guys to come in and work out. It's definitely a competitive business when it comes to attracting free agents to make us better. The 49ers are really committing to making that happen."

Additional office space, an in-house kitchen and an expanded players' lounge are still to be completed. The expanded weight room will necessitate blowing out the eastern wall of the locker room and pushing its boundary onto what is a walkway leading to and from the practice fields.

The entire renovation is expected to be completed by November.

"The facility was built in 1988. It was just time to enhance some things," said Keena Turner, the former Super Bowl linebacker now serving as the team's vice president of football affairs. "The facility has become a year-round facility. Back in the day, it served the team for six months. We've grown over the years in total employees."

Players taking part in a minicamp Friday through Sunday will be inconvenienced by construction to the locker room but the finished product in July will give them more space.

An area to the south of the practice fields currently serving as a patio will be converted into needed office space, complete with a second-floor expansion.

"We've got people crowded in every corner up there," said Lisa Lang, vice president of communications. "It will allow us to reconfigure the office to make better use of work flow."

The work flow in the weight room has been improved with the expansion, with players giving a thumbs-up to the project that created dedicated space for a dozen or so stationary bikes, treadmills and stair climbers.

"We definitely appreciate it as players," tackle Joe Staley said. "They're making this a top-notch facility. It gives us more resources to get better. It's not only good for us, it's good for attracting guys (unrestricted free agents) to come here."

Staley was in the weight room recently working up a sweat on a "dual cable cross" machine that he called "the best machine ever."

"You can do a variety of different exercises on it," he said. "We probably do 10 different exercises on it. We can work our core and abs and legs. If your goal is to have a home gym, you want to have this machine and a squat rack. That's all you need."

Although his weight is the same as it was last season, 315 pounds, Staley said he feels better about himself from his work in the team's offseason program, much of it in the weight room.

"You can see the transformation in people's bodies," Staley said. "My goal coming in was to lean-up and still gain weight. I feel in the last month I've lowered my percentage of body fat to where I was in college. This is the most flexible I've been."

Another workout warrior is cornerback Nate Clements, who counts himself as a fan of the weight-room expansion.

"Just like bringing players in, the organization is trying to show they're taking steps to win by fixing up the weight room and improving the players' lounge," Clements said. "It makes a better working environment for the entire staff. Everyone is having fun, competing, trying to get better as a team and individually."